


A Steady Path

by vandal_aria



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Asexual Relationship, Chronic Pain, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 17:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20800505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vandal_aria/pseuds/vandal_aria
Summary: Fenris should have said how badly he needed the touch of someone that cared enough to run back into a burning city for him.





	A Steady Path

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Razzaroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Razzaroo/gifts).

> I've been wanting to write something for these two since I first played DA2. To contextualize this story a bit, assume that Anders lives, Hawke sides with the mages, and Fenris sides with Meredith. I also took the vague description we get of Fenris' discomfort from other people touching his lyrium tattoos and molded it to be something like peripheral neuropathy, if you're curious. I hope you like it! :)
> 
> Content warnings: aftermath of enslavement, class insensitivity, betrayals of trust, chronic pain (neuropathy).

“We could make it to the city in time for the Grand Tourney celebration.” Sebastian placed the notice carefully back on the Chanter’s board and smoothed it down with a gloved hand. 

It was the first tentatively optimistic thing he had said since fleeing Kirkwall, but the choice to use city rather than home gave Fenris pause. He stood, arms crossed, a comfortable distance behind, largely uninterested in checking what the board had on offer. In such a small village, the coin would likely not be enough to make it worth the effort. He made a noncommittal hum in reply, deciding to wait and see where this new line of optimism would lead.

“It is a sight to be seen,” Sebastian finally continued. “I spent many memorable days fighting in the joust and…many other activities.”

“I have no doubt,” Fenris answered. Though the Tourney had not come to Kirkwall during his time there, plenty of tales about the festival had reached his ears.

Sebastian fell silent again, and Fenris toed a small rock through the dust on the road. Acknowledging that Kirkwall was no longer home after Elthina’s death built a wall of finality and wrought change neither of them had expected or wanted. Their time traveling together was mere survival punctuated by short outbursts of violence against bandits, thieves, or other creatures that sought to compete for space on the road. Sebastian’s armor was so dirty and dented now that he carried it in his pack, instead donning leathers purchased from a stall of used goods in the town’s tiny market.

With two weeks growth of beard and his dirty hair tied back, Fenris thought he looked more like a servant of Andraste now than he ever as a cloistered lay brother. Like the famed traveler Genitivi in the book Hawke had bought for him the previous year. This version of Sebastian was less approachable, less kind, and yet more human. Fenris understood him better than before. This was a physical manifestation of loss and suffering. They had both lost family and friends and a home.

“Will you…come to the Tourney with me?” 

Fenris looked up to find Sebastian had turned toward him. For a moment, a flicker of light returned to his eyes.

“I would like if you came with me,” Sebastian offered again, more confidently. “It’s been many years since I was able to attend.”

Since Kirkwall, Fenris had followed Sebastian aimlessly, recovering from injuries inflicted by Hawke herself. He thought he would at least feel vindicated that he traded her a few wounds as well, but he did not. After the fight, he remembered the bitter taste of medicine on his tongue, and the heat of flames around him, but his memory came up blank when he tried to recall how he got out of the city. He passed out again somewhere along the way, and woke up at dusk next to a small fire, his wounds bandaged, though poorly. Sebastian was there, sitting and watching the city burn in the distance. His back was taught as a bowstring, a thick, heavy rage engulfing him in a cocoon. Though he didn’t feel the same, Fenris understood, and let him be. Their friends had betrayed their trust.

No, perhaps Hawke was more than a friend—she was an ideal and a force of change, one in which Fenris no longer believed. He was tired and his heart did not rebel at the idea of settling, of finding a steady path through the chaos of his life.

Going to Starkhaven could be the start of that steady path. “I do not wish to…compete to line the pockets of the nobility,” Fenris said warily.

Sebastian’s brow furrowed and then looked horrified. “Maker, no. That’s not what I had in mind.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I thought we could use a break from trouble for a while. There is food and drink from all over the Marches, and entertainment. And dancing.” When Fenris didn’t immediately reply, he grew red and beads of sweat formed at his upper lip. “I apologize for implying otherwise.”

Fenris’ face softened, but he did not smile. His instinct told him that Sebastian meant well. “Acceptable.”

Clearly flustered by the ambiguity of the conversation, Sebastian asked, “The apology or the offer?”

“I’ll come to Tourney with you.”

Sebastian was visibly relieved, taking the statement as the forgiveness it was.

—

The remaining week of travel to the outlands of Starkhaven felt easier. Far fewer fights plagued their path, Fenris’ wounds were nearly healed, and he noticed a subtle change in Sebastian. The farther away they moved from Kirkwall, the more the cocoon of controlled rage loosened around him, with one notable exception.

After two nearly sleepless nights beset by mosquitos, they were both in difficult moods, Fenris ultimately more irritated with Sebastian’s deep, sudden melancholy than with the insects themselves. It was a good way to get himself killed, and possibly Fenris as well, trying to save the man from himself. 

After hauling him bodily away from from a boggy sinkhole in the road he nearly walked right into, Fenris couldn’t stand the listlessness anymore and stomped ahead. He knew they could not afford another sleepless night without moving into dangerous territory. The previous night he thought he had seen a dim flicker of firelight in the distance, and he stubbornly willed it to be a house rather than other travelers. Or worse, a camp full of hostiles.

His feet sank into the ground in places, but luckily he came across no more dangerous holes. Down the road, he could see the lights again, and it looked to be a solid structure. When they finally found lodging for the night at the small tavern, Sebastian and Fenris sat at the crowded bar and ordered the first meal they didn’t have to forage in weeks. The local wine was tempting, but the hot stew felt like a brick in Fenris’ stomach, and he realized how exhausted he was.

Sebastian seemed restless, and he ordered a pint from the barkeep. Another followed soon after, with a double shot as a chaser. Fenris frowned, but said nothing, and after a moment he stood with the intention to retire for the night.

Unexpectedly, Sebastian grabbed his elbow. The shock on his nerves from foreign skin touching the lyrium markings nearly made him yell. Sebastian tugged on his arm to turn him, and the involuntary movement jolted through his bones.

“Why are you staying with me?” Sebastian was clearly becoming intoxicated, unused to drink after weeks on the road and having only eaten half his meal. He was so deep in his own head he probably didn't even see Fenris’ discomfort.

Fenris jerked his arm away, and opened his mouth to swear, but Sebastian interrupted him, knocking a fist into the wood of the bar. “You’re a free man now, you could go anywhere you wanted. Don’t settle for Starkhaven.”

Perhaps he had a point, but Fenris was too rattled to consider it as a rational suggestion. “I could say the same to you,” he snapped back. “Familial duty is horse shit. What do you actually owe them?”

Without waiting for a response, he stalked away, upending a chair once alone in the privacy of their shared room. What he should have said was _because I like being near you_. He should have said how badly he needed the touch of someone that cared enough to run back into a burning city for him. That he could _learn_ to like it. He stared at the two beds on opposite walls, an apt if heavy-handed joke about his emotional life straight from the Maker.

—

The Grand Tourney was not exactly at Fenris had imagined from the stories. The largest portion of space was dedicated to hundred of vendors displaying food, spices, cloth, jewels, armor, weapons, and many, many trinkets. Performers moved about the fair with practiced ease. To even see the fights, one had to walk to the center of the city, where the palace had provided funds to build platforms for spectators around a large arena.

Sebastian seemed to be pointedly avoiding that area of the city, guiding them through the crowd-bloated streets to point out stalls he thought Fenris would like. One confections merchant had apples coated in in a tantalizingly thick layer of caramelized sugar; he purchased three though it felt like a completely unnecessary indulgence. He ate one of them while he watched Sebastian drop in on an archery contest, surprising the other participants that happened to recognize him (and most of them looked quite uncomfortable with this knowledge).

There was a studied elegance to his movements, Fenris noticed, quite different than seeing him in battle. This was Sebastian the prince, mingling with his subjects. Fenris found it in intriguing to watch and, unable to look away, he forgot about his apple, leaning forward onto the spectators’ railing.

Sebastian won several rounds, but bowed out after receiving only a handful of coin. He noticed Fenris at the edge of the area and joined him, plucking the half-eaten apple from his hand and biting into it with a devious half-smile. Fenris raised his eyebrows but didn’t protest. After all, he had two more stashed in the rumpled paper bag at his feet, and this behavior was a startling upswing from the journey.

They didn’t stay to continue watching the contest, but instead returned to wandering the streets, Fenris mostly listening while Sebastian made easy small talk about the sights. Eventually, the sun started to hang low and Sebastian pointed to a gravel turn ahead that was more alley than street. 

“I used to spend a lot of time at a bar down here in my youth. I wonder if it’s burned down yet? Let’s have a drink and a bite if it still stands,” Sebastian suggested, and his hand touched the back of Fenris’ arm to guide him. 

Fenris pulled away sharply, reacting before he had really processed the disturbing tug under his skin. He had started feeling at ease throughout the afternoon, even going so far as to lean a little closer than strictly necessary when they looked at something together, but the unexpected touch dragged him back to gray reality.

Sebastian looked surprised. “I’m sorry, should I not have touched you? What’s wrong?”

“It’s not that I don’t…_enjoy_ being touched, but the markings are almost impossible to avoid.” Fenris rubbed a hand up and down his arm, an unsuccessful attempt to physically smooth out the tingling.

“They hurt?” Sebastian looked surprised.

“No, it’s more like a feeling of something pulling on my nerves. It’s worse when I’m not expecting it,” Fenris answered.

“I wish you had said before, in the bar. I assumed you were just angry with me.”

“I was.”

Sebastian fell silent and serious before slowly offering a hand in Fenris’ line of sight, palm up. His skin was dry and warm when Fenris took it after a moment’s hesitation, curling his fingers around the rough knuckles. The hand was only a little bigger than his own and he thought he might like that. His nerves began to calm.

“I don’t understand you, but I’m trying. I don’t know what sort of life I could hope to offer you here, but at least my heart would be fulfilled if you stayed with me.”

Fenris looked at the hand in his, rubbing his thumb along the lines in Sebastian’s palm. This was such a small gesture of affection, but the euphoric flutter developing in his stomach suggested a deeper meaning. “I would like that.”


End file.
